Autzoo.1627
net.unix-wizards
utzoo!henry
Tue May  4 15:44:18 1982
10.0 * 0.1 =?= 1
A friend of mine once made a very true comment:  "floating point is an
analog box anyway".  To my mind, the only thing one is justified in
assuming about floating-point arithmetic is that the result is somewhere
near what it should be.  Assuming that 0.5 * 2 == 1 is just as foolish
as assuming 10.0 * 0.1 == 1;  there will always be some machine where
it's not, for one reason or another.  Pray for machines which can support
efficient interval arithmetic.

This is not to dispute that {x *= y} != {x = x * y} is wrong code.

						Henry Spencer
						decvax!utzoo!henry

-----------------------------------------------------------------
 gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>
 of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/


This Usenet Oldnews Archive
article may be copied and distributed freely, provided:

1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles.

2. The following notice remains appended to each copy:

The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 
 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.